U.S. Senate candidate in El Paso: Ted Cruz makes push for smaller government

Ted Cruz, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks to a group of Coronado Hitgh School students Monday. Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general, is running against Democrat Paul Sadler, who served six terms as a state representative, to fill Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's seat.

U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz explained his vision of an America with a smaller, less powerful federal government, which he said will take care of much of what ails the country, during an interview Monday afternoon at the El Paso Times.

The Republican said the basic campaign issue is "how much debt and regulation is good for the country."

Cruz, who beat Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the July Republican-primary runoff election, now faces Paul Sadler, a Democrat who served six terms as a Texas state representative. Sadler, getting no money from the national Democratic Party and facing a mostly Republican electorate, is in an uphill battle for the post that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will vacate when she retires in January.

"He was never elected to a city, state or county position," Sadler said Monday evening in a telephone interview. "How has he proven anything?"

Sadler has branded Cruz as a tea party "radical" more interested in leading a movement than solving Texans' problems. And though tea party candidates talk about restoring freedom, their positions on issues such as restricting availability of birth control would deny personal freedom, Sadler said.

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"This attack is a broad attack on women in general," Sadler said in a statement. "It is an attack on their personal life, their contraceptive care and their decisions to control their own health."

Cruz talks about freeing businesses from regulation.

Eliminating many regulations and cutting federal spending, Cruz said, will solve many problems. He said those actions will allow "job creators" to hire more people.

Part of that Republican formula includes tax cuts for the wealthy, which are intended to create an incentive to hire more workers.

However, a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service showed no conclusive link between tax cuts for the wealthiest and economic growth.

And some critics of the approach say the economic confidence that is supposed to appear with such an approach has not materialized in European nations that have doggedly pursued austerity measures.

When it comes to taxes, Cruz said he supports simplification. He said "hundreds of billions of dollars" are spent annually as wage earners and business owners hire people to interpret the code.

Reporter Chris Roberts

"I would move as close as possible to a uniform rate ... with an exemption at the bottom," Cruz said.

And Cruz said he will achieve his goals in Congress through compromise

He compared his approach with that of former President Ronald Reagan.

"What do you do if someone offers you half a loaf?" Cruz asked. "You take it and come back for more."

However, as he further explained how that would work, he did not leave much uncontested ground.

"People come up to me and say, 'You're that crazy tea party guy who will not compromise on anything,' " Cruz said. Only in Washington, D.C., "is it radical or extreme to not want to bankrupt the country."

And Cruz said he has signed Grover Norquist's pledge to never vote for a tax increase. He said he intends to keep that promise.

He repeated his pledge to eliminate the federal departments of education, commerce and energy. Also on Cruz's chopping block would be the National Endowment for the Arts and, eventually, the Internal Revenue Service.

"We all want more effective and efficient government," Sadler said. "You can't be so destructive of government that you hurt our communities and our quality of life."

Cruz said he would improve schools by putting them under local control. Education is too important to be run by "federal bureaucrats," he said. And Sadler's charge that Texas would lose billions in education funding if the department is eliminated is not true, Cruz said.

Vital functions such as teacher training would be pulled into other federal agencies, he said.

"He's moving the money from one agency to another," Sadler said, "and you haven't saved anything."

Cruz did his part for education Monday with a visit to Coronado High School, where he answered questions from students after delivering a motivational speech.

With a confident stride, Cruz grabbed the microphone and walked off the stage. He paced in front of the students telling jokes and urging them to succeed. As he approached the climax of his speech, his voice rose to nearly a shout.

"Aim high, follow your passions and never give in, and every one of you can make a difference in this world around you," Cruz said.

Those students will face a different type of retirement if Cruz has his way.

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